Dale and Elizabeth Hanson Fellowship in Ethics

The Dale and Elizabeth Hanson Fellowship in Ethics provides funding to support students conducting summer research on ethical topics. Successful applicants receive a stipend of$1,600up front and can apply for up to another$500 to defer the cost of research materials and other expenses.

2014 Hanson Fellows:

This project explores the ethical concerns that arise from the intersection between efforts to mitigate climate change and our goals of reducing poverty and inequality around the world. Specifically, I researched the relevant philosophical literature in both climate ethics and development ethics, and attempted to identify whether there were fundamental ethical principles underlying our understanding of both. I also read and considered relevant international policy in order to understand how our policy goals and expectations match up with these broader ethical principles, and how they deal with the concerns that arise from the potentially conflicting nature of environmental preservation and economic development.

Carolyn Friedhoff ’17"Japanese Confucian Ethics: A Case Study of the Philosophy in Japanese Prison Culture"

This study reviews the intellectual history of Confucianism, tracing its roots to where it is said to have begun in ancient China. Focusing on Japan's government's strategic use of Neo-Confucian ethics to grow in power, the study attempts to determine how Confucianism impacted Japanese human rights conceptions and practical culture.

Combining theories of immersion and the psychological elements of immersion as well as Kendal Walton's Pretence Theoy and Kant's argument for indirect moral rights, I sought to find the moral minimum of NPCs within video games.